Conan O'Brien will not be denied his Masturbating Bear

Among the copious stories teasing out what will and won’t be a part of Conan O’Brien’s new TBS talk show (and don’t worry—with its Nov. 8 premiere approaching, we’re definitely on the downward slope), one question has persisted: What of the Masturbating Bear? While it would seem that Conan’s go-to self-pawing punchline would be just one of many recurring characters locked away by NBC, anyone who saw the Pleasuring Panda’s debut on the Legally Prohibited tour knows that Conan refuses to take the network’s claims to a big bear jerking himself off seriously.

In a new Rolling Stone interview (excerpted here), Conan swears, “I won't be denied my Masturbating Bear!” while saying that “If there's something we did for a long time that we've established as ours, we'll figure out a way to do it.” In fact, he’s practically daring NBC to do something about it: “What I really wanna do is be sued over the bear and then appear in court with the Masturbating Bear. 'Your Honor, this bear can't help himself!’” This suggests that you could see all manner of just-slightly-tweaked variations on familiar Conan characters—Whoremasterbot 5000 and The Rude, Tangential Phrase Supplier, perhaps.